Teen invents system to keep germs from traveling on planes

A teenager has found a way to keep you from inhaling everyone else's germs while you're flying. Raymond Wang, 17, has invented a new fan system that changes the way air moves around a plane.

When he studied traditional air systems on planes, he found out most of the air is shared by passengers three times before it gets to the filters. You know what that means, right? We're all sharing gross, nasty germs when we shove ourselves into those increasingly smaller airline seats.

In a recent TED Talk, he said: 'We have this mixing airflow pattern, so if someone were to actually sneeze, that air would get swirled around multiple times before it even has a chance to go out through the filter. And thinking about it like that makes flying even grosser than you thought.

His device is called the Global Inlet Detector, and keeps air in a contained space before it gets to the filter system to get cleaned out.

It can be installed in planes for less than $1,000 bucks, and Wang says it will be able make pathogen transmission 55 times less than what it was before, and increase fresh air inhalation by 190 percent.

Yeah, all the technology sounds great, but we're just looking to avoid getting sick by the time we make it home during the holidays. Sniffles and stuffing just don't go well together.